Student learning is increasingly taking place in digital environments both within and outside schooling contexts. Educational assessments are following suit, both to take advantage of the conveniences and opportunities that digital environments provide as well as to reflect the mediums of learning increasingly taking place in societies around the…

The "OECD Skills Studies" series aims to provide a strategic approach to skills policies. It presents OECD internationally comparable indicators and policy analysis covering issues such as: quality of education and curricula; transitions from school to work; vocational education and training (VET); employment and unemployment; innovative…

Few contemporary pre-service teachers would have completed their schooling with the extensive aid of computers. Yet, classroom use of information and communication technology (ICT) is now ubiquitous in much of the world. Today's pre-service teachers are the "cusp generation" who, at a unique moment in history, straddle the two worlds of…

PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) was inaugurated in 2001 as a follow-up to International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's 1991 Reading Literacy Study. Conducted every five years, PIRLS assesses the reading achievement of young students in their fourth year of schooling--an important transition…

This article explores factors that contribute to low participation rates in computing and information technology (CIT) courses in senior secondary school, particularly for females. Partly drawing on the Values-Expectancy Theory the following variables are explored separately and within a single model: gender, ability and values beliefs, access and…

E-learning technologies are often seen as a driving force in the democratisation of contemporary education. However, few researchers have focused on inequalities in online learners' access to technologies or their abilities to use them. In 2009, we assessed The University of Western Australia's "SmARTS" outreach program, investigating…

Using data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2003 and 2007 administrations, this study examines international trends in technology use and explores the international patterns in how teacher-directed, student-use of technology is related to eighth grade mathematics achievement. Descriptive patterns in…

This paper reports on the outcomes of a survey implemented in a large regional community of Australia. The survey was completed by parents of children aged four-five years and attending local early childhood centres. The survey identified the types of access and use of computers by preschool children. It was found that the children of the…

As countries continue to invest in information and communication technologies (ICT) and they become even more common in the workplace, there is an increasing demand for schools to produce technologically literate students. This report presents results from the "Programme for International Student Assessment" (PISA) 2003, and examines how…

The "TIMSS 2011 International Results in Mathematics" summarizes fourth and eighth grade student achievement in each of the 63 countries and 14 benchmarking entities which participated in TIMSS 2011. The report includes trends in mathematics achievement over time for participants in the previous TIMSS 1995, 1999, 2003, and 2007…

Females are under-represented in education, training and employment in the area of Information Communication Technology (ICT). Research shows that girls are tuning out to ICTs in school and they have a low participation rate in ICT related tertiary study and employment. The Tech Savvy report by the American Association of University Women (2000)…

In this end piece, the authors argue that while this special issue shifts debates on the digital divide to address students' capacity to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for productive social purposes, access to ICT remains a major challenge in countries like Uganda, in which less than 1% of the population has access to the…

For more than 50 years, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) has been conducting comparative studies of educational achievement in a number of curriculum areas, including mathematics and science. TIMSS 2011 represents the fifth cycle of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS),…

Unmet demand for tertiary education is difficult to define and to estimate. In this report, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001 Survey of Education, Training and Information Technology are used to shed light on defining and enumerating unmet demand. Unmet demand occurs when potential students apply for a place at university or in…

Findings from a survey administered to large numbers of grade 7-10 students are presented in this paper. The focus is on the students' attitudes towards the use of computers for the learning of mathematics. Background information was also gathered which allowed the students' responses to be analysed by a range of equity factors--gender, ethnicity,…